No longer the Raj

Written by Holmes Charnley

I note with interest, that over in Basildon, a shop has opened that caters for people with dark skin. Enough of euphemisms. Afro-Caribbean. These ladies from Essex no longer need to trek into London to find suitable cosmetics.

Over at shop, partner Sharon Peters, whose family was originally from St Lucia said, "Black skin has a different texture from white skin, it contains lots of a melanin, and therefore everyday beauty products are too greasy for us. Black people, obviously, have thicker, curlier hair, which requires special treatment, with specific products."

This story made me smile. Recently, sweetheart was in front garden when she heard a voice say, "It's because of Brazilians, you know." Conspiratorially, like.

Well, sweetheart looked round, trying to sort out if this was becoming some form of a biblical happening. Eventually, however, grey hair and disturbed face of our elderly next~door neighbour poked out and explained that house down road, though it had been on market for ages, wouldn't sell because of occupants from South America, who lived opposite. They smelt, she said. And they had wrong sort of curtains. (This is all true, I kid you not.)

Globalization

Written by Slawek

ABOUT GLOBALIZATION My Dear: It was still in 20th century when Polish weekly "Wprost" published an article titled "The opponents of globalization - who are they?" Let me ponder what too an average person, GLOBALIZATION is.

Here it comes: GLOBALIZATION, or search for means to satisfy at all costs…or, in practice, expanding ad infinitum our ambitions. YES! Our numbers are ever increasing and we want more and more for us and only US! The problem is that in this process, we lose ourselves, our identity.

America leads in everything, now it imparted itself on whole world and we, like monkeys in a sandbox, we push sand from one spot to another, vocalizing louder than our fellow monkeys and understanding even less. We cannot afford to open our eyes and realize how much we are not ourselves, to what extent we are gone. Do you have a feeling that with help of our own hands world turns into a mere comic book? In it, there are schwarzenegers, and other rambos in which we find ourselves, although sense of WE is missing. Looking at all that is close to our hearts, human rights, environment, love, democracy, Pope, etc., we only see new form of comic book and ourselves only through and within it. From time to time words ‘the Pope’ slip out of someone’s mouth, but we are not capable anymore of a reflection on what Pope said! You’ll tell me that I rage on and still my point is not clear at all.

For a few years I’ve been watching creation of ever-bigger companies, American and international. Engulfing became a new sport. One ingests another. Globalization applies to press, TV stations, Internet, medicine, streets, mercantile exchanges, houses where you pay for love, homes without love, and homes of crime. Not only in our home, but also in homes of those who got to top, thanks to yet another hiccup of newly created beast, everywhere bubbles Globalization. I’ve seen many highly paid experts in their respective professions lose their job without a chance of finding another, as they got too high on pay scale. They are replaced with young people, fresh out of college, for a third of pay of their predecessors. The world is then fed news of savings, profits, successes, ‘the firsts’, globalization…

Such is stale hiccup of our times. A few giants expanding absorptive power of their pockets eliminate stinking excess of undigested, and increasingly uniform chow. The only loser is consumer, as marketed product gets worse and worse. Why is it getting worse? The new hires don’t have too much of an idea what they are doing and few nouveaux riches of globalization saddles them up and rides them by forcing new hires to perform at a yet impossible for them level (just as a 5 year old boy can’t be expected to have a child with a girl of same age; this is just situation which results from globalization as observed from employee’s backyard; in US, it pops into view in all walks of life. This is why I get so irate at journalistic ‘pseudo thoughts’ never understanding what they spew around, American style.